Till We Meet Again
by civilizedrevolutionary
Summary: Cosette wasn't the only one to have nightmares after she came to live with Valjean. Her adopted father comforted her through her bad dreams, but who comforted Valjean through his?


Jean Valjean woke up in a sweat, the dreaded number of his imprisonment still ringing in his ears from the recurring nightmare. _24601_. Numbers, cold, meaningless numbers that degraded and and made worthless a human life.

_A thief! Stupid, uneducated! We can't have his kind running free in society!_

Valjean slowly sat up, closing his eyes, trying to forget how, despite his status as Monsieur le Maire, despite thousands of people in the town praising his name, he was alone. So utterly, frighteningly, and gut-wrenchingly _alone._

He tried to slow his ragged, panting breaths, tried to shake off the nightmare that still haunted him every night. It was that nightmare which made him live in a permanent state of unease, always wondering when the day would come that he was discovered and taken back to the galleys.

Valjean opened his eyes again and stood up, crossing the room over to the fireplace, on which two heavy, silver candlesticks were placed. He grasped them in his hands as though to anchor himself to the world, to keep himself from falling. They whispered to him in the dark, _your soul is God's now. Remember your promise._

He looked out the window, to the stars dotting the sky like freckles on a child's nose. The moon was full and bright, and seemed to him to be the bishop calling him from another world, as a beacon of light. He heaved a deep breath, and once more felt grounded, strong.

Yes, he was strong. He was strong, but he was still alone.

* * *

She was small, so small. Jean Valjean couldn't remember the last time he had felt such a tiny hand in his. Not since many, many years before.

Cosette looked up at him with a calm and steady trust, that trust which had been somehow so easily gained.

"Are you my Papa?" She asked him as he led her away from the Thenardier's inn.

Jean Valjean's heart stopped. He looked down at her once more, eager and hopeful, but wary and careful.

Unable to speak, he nodded. Certainly it hasn't been his plan to adopt the child, but now he saw no other possibility. Nor did he wish to. For the first time in his life Jean Valjean felt a tiny flare of warmth spread through his chest, and his face broke out unwittingly into a smile. Unbeknownst to him, this feeling was happiness.

* * *

Many trying and difficult nights passed, yet none were on his behalf. Unsurprisingly, Cosette had her own share of nightmares collected from her terrible childhood. Valjean stayed up with her on these nights, and as a result, did not have to face his own nightmares.

"I'm sorry," Cosette sobbed in her blankets, barely looking at Valjean. "I'm sorry for making a fuss, I know I'm not worth it—"

Her cries pierced Valjean painfully, and as he stroked her delicate head he tried to express what he felt for her in words.

"Don't be sorry, _ma Cosette_. We all have bad dreams sometimes." Yet something in him told him that was not enough, and he knew it. As Cosette tried to muffle her cries in her blankets, Valjean remembered something he'd once heard an old woman say to her sick son.

"Bad dreams are only ghosts, _ma cherie_. They can only hurt you if you let them." He paused, the words beginning to spill out easily. "You are not alone, you are worth everything to me. When you fall asleep, you will meet me when you open your eyes."

Cosette lay still as stone in her bed. Valjean thought she'd fallen asleep, until he heard her ask, "Till we meet again?"

Valjean started, then smiled. "Till we meet again, Cosette." He bent over and kissed her forehead, drawing the blankets up to her chin. She grasped his rough and large hand in her own tiny one. He stayed with her until the slow, deep breaths of her sleep reached his ears, and even then he did not let go.

* * *

_The air was cold, and all around him it was dark and foggy. Valjean stood in the midst of the storm, shackled and bound forever to the long line of endless convicts, stretching out for miles in front and behind him._

_He was driven on—a crack of the whip, the cruel sting of the guard's taunting words—to walk forever. Valjean did not know how long he had been walking, how long he had been dying of thirst and hunger. His lips were as dry and cracked as an old man's face, his cheeks were hollow and his eyes were gaunt. At once he could observe himself as though his soul had detached from his body, then he was back with the other prisoners._

_He shuddered, telling himself this was a dream and nothing more, nothing could touch him here._

_But he was here, and would be here till the end of time, dragging the heavy chains of his conscience until the sun returned._

_A tall, imposing shadow loomed over him, stretching for miles above his head. It stared down with the face of Javert, stern and made of stone, pointing at Valjean._

_"That man is Jean Valjean!"_

_Suddenly a wall of men burst from the ground, all facing Valjean, pointing accusingly. Neighbors, townspeople, people he had helped over the years, through poverty and sickness._

_"Father Madeleine? There is no such man! There is only a convict, a thief, a blackguard, a—"_

"Papa? Papa, are you alright?"

Cosette's little voice reached him through the darkness and pulled him to the light. Valjean opened his eyes, lurching upright in his bed.

Cosette gave a little cry of surprise at his movement, and then Valjean remembered where he was.

"Cosette?"

Cosette stood a couple of feet away, rocking shyly on her heels.

"You were yelling in your sleep."

Valjean remained silent, staring at the wall. Then, Cosette took his hand.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Her voice was soft and understanding, and her tone was heartbreakingly knowing for a girl so young.

Valjean looked at her eyes staring back, so deep and blue, like pools of light. He nodded.

Cosette sat next to him on the bed, her tiny figure casting a shadow next to Valjean's in the moonlight.

"Bad dreams are only ghosts. But I'm not," she said, her voice sweet and innocent. "I'll stay with you till you fall asleep."

Valjean nodded mechanically, and allowed Cosette to tuck him in as he had done. He almost laughed at the way her tiny hands pulled up the blankets.

"Till we meet again, Papa."


End file.
